Do you remember when a technology company in the media spotlight usually meant something exciting and shiny was being announced? Those days seem so distant now. Back then, Jobs was giving us “one more thing,” Google was actually trying to not be evil, Flash was still doing amazing things on the web, Facebook was connecting us with long-lost friends and relatives, and Yahoo was the darling search engine and homepage for millions. Unfortunately for all involved, their present-day state reads like a click-bait-y “Where are they now?” article, and it’s just as depressing as you might think, at least as far as Yahoo Mail is concerned.
So where is Yahoo now?
The former internet giant was divvied up in 2015 between Oath Inc (aka Verizon) and a new company called Altaba. Oath took over the ailing portal and email services, while the more profitable parts of the business, including Yahoo! Japan and their investments in Alibaba were consolidated under Altaba. While it may be hard to comprehend why anyone, let alone Verizon, would pay to take over Yahoo Mail, apparently the revenue potential of millions of eyeballs trying to read emails surrounded by advertising whetted someone’s appetite. Whatever tantalizing profit potential that might have existed, it’s considerably less thanks to a $35M fine handed down by the SEC for the company’s failure to inform its investors of the 2014 breach, which, keep in mind, was a paltry 500M accounts breached as compared to the 3 billion accounts breached in the previous year. Oh, and don’t forget, it’s also highly likely that the US government scanned your Ymail for terrorist activity as well. Would you think less of me if I started calling this service “Why-mail”? Or maybe “Y-R-U-still-using-this-mail”. Oh, how the might-Y have fallen. Alright, I’ll stop now, please don’t unsubscribe!
